The phenomenal success of the iPad lays a major challenge before Microsoft. Can the giant compete? Stuart Johnston reports.

Microsoft has had an embarrassing fall, fending off accusations by competitors and critics that it has been talking big but still hasn't delivered on CEO Steve Ballmer's boast last summer that gaining a solid foothold in the evolving market for slate computers is Microsoft's "job one."

The company hopes that will start to change in early January when Ballmer is expected to show off a "slew" of new slate devices running Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows 7 during his opening keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, according to a blog entry in the New York Times Monday evening. CES is scheduled for January 6 through 9.

The blog, quoting unnamed sources "familiar with Microsoft's plans," said that Ballmer will showcase devices from Samsung and Dell, as well as from other device makers, during his speech.

It's perhaps a little ironic that Ballmer also showed an HP slate computer he said was running Windows 7 during last year's CEO keynote.